Exile to Mordor
by Uvatha the Horseman
Summary: In SA 1600, Annatar is unmasked as Sauron Gorthaur and has to leave town in a giant hurry.
1. The Workshop of the Jewel Smiths

**Chapter 1 - The Workshop of the Jewel Smiths**

Ost-in-Edhil, SA 1500

The forge was nearly empty, which was unusual for mid-afternoon. Celebrimbor, the head of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, was absent, and so were several of his Master Craftsmen.

He and Celebrimbor were working together to make the Great Rings. They had already finished a series of nine, and were close to completing the seventh ring in the next series.

The Great Rings, which represented the highest level of craftsmanship seen in Arda since the days of Fëanor, were made to be given away. What if they were misused, what if they were lost? He would let them go, but he still wanted to keep an eye on them.

Before the first of the Great Rings was forged, he added a binding mechanism, something barely noticeable, to a utilitarian part of the design. That way, he could maintain control if any of the rings were used irresponsibly, or if they fell into the wrong hands.

Of course, a binding mechanism only worked if there was something to bind it to. He knew how to make a Binding Ring, but wasn't able to. He needed extreme temperatures like those found in dragon's fire, which he didn't have.

Annatar put the tongs in the fire. He pulled out a piece of metal glowing orange, and struck it repeatedly with a hammer. One of his apprentices filled a bucket of water to quench the finished piece.

"Where has everyone gone? Even one of my apprentices is missing." Annatar wondered aloud.

"Celebrimbor has some new project. He's asked the most gifted craftsmen in the guild to assist him. They don't know if it will work, so they're keeping it quiet for the moment." a journeyman told him.

That's odd. He hasn't mentioned the project to me, thought Annatar.

Celebrimbor had begun to urge his master craftsman to work on separate tasks. He said they should each pick a specialty and focus on it, as the Gwaith-i-Mírdain moved into more difficult, more highly skilled work.

But at some point, Annatar noticed that the best of the apprentices and journeymen in the workshop were working for Celebrimbor. Annatar was annoyed, and spoke to him about it in private.

"I get the impression that you've claimed the best talent for yourself. How about we divide them up a little more evenly?"

"Most of them were already working for me. I only took one or two of yours. Anyway, I need them for the work I'm doing."

"And I don't?"

"Not to the same extent. We're doing something that's never been done before. I need the visionaries, the ones who are the most creative, the most inventive. On the other hand, your work normally involves taking something that already exists, changing it a little, and using it for something new. Any of the apprentices and journeymen in the workshop can support you for that."

Annatar let the matter drop, but he wasn't pleased. But ultimately, Celebrimbor was head of the workshop, and the decision was his to make.

The door of Celebrimbor's private office opened. Celebrimbor and two of his master craftsmen came out together, followed by some of the most gifted apprentices and journeymen in the guild. Annatar looked up and greeted Celebrimbor.

"What's the new project?"

"I'm working on an idea, but I'm not ready to go public with it. I'm just making a few sketches to see where it goes." said Celebrimbor.

"I'd be happy to sit in and give you advice."

"I don't think it would interest you. We're using techniques other than the ones you taught us. They're not fully developed yet. In fact, we're inventing them as we go.

"Even so, I'd like to be included."

Celebrimbor looked embarrassed.

"I really don't think it would suit you. Your skills are very great, but they don't quite put you in the upper tier. That's not a bad reflection on you, it's just that the bar is always being raised, and right how, it's set very, very high."

Annatar started to get angry. He was the greatest craftsman here, yet people junior to him were being chosen before him.

"So you're saying I'm not good enough. You're wrong if you think my skill is less than your own; I studied under Aulë himself."

"Or under one of his students." Celebrimbor said mildly.

"Excuse me?" Annatar stiffened.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but when you first came here, Gil-galad made a few inquiries. Mahtan told him that neither he nor the other Aulëndil[1] had ever heard of you. But I let it go, because you brought so much knowledge and skill, I didn't mind if you'd improved your credentials a bit, or even if you'd never actually met Aulë.

"You underestimate me. I am Mairon Artano, the High Smith, the first and greatest of Aulë's Maiar." Annatar said.

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized he said too much, but it didn't matter. Celebrimbor didn't believe him anyway.

"Uh … Mahtan said Curumo is Aulë's greatest Maiar. He didn't mention anyone called Mairon." said Celebrimbor.

Annatar was taken aback. He'd assumed he was notorious back home. Why did he do it? Will he repent? Will he be brought to justice? But he never expected to fade out of sight as though he'd never existed. It shook him badly.

"And just so you know, I don't like being lied to." Celebrimbor said. He left the room before Annatar had a chance to reply.

Celebrimbor, his closest friend, had just called him a liar!

Annatar lied easily and often, but on this occasion, he happened to be telling the truth. He wanted to throw the hammer against the wall.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The apprentices left at the end of the day, but Annatar was too unsettled to finish up and go home. He'd always found peace in hard physical labor. He needed that peace very badly just now.

He pulled an orange-hot piece of iron from the coals and struck it over and over with the hammer. The repetitive motion calmed him, and the music of the hammer against the anvil drowned out all other sounds in the forge.

The metal cooled to grey. He quenched it in the water barrel next to the anvil, then set the hammer aside and looked up. Celebrimbor was standing in the doorway. He face was unreadable. Annatar hadn't heard him come in.

Annatar spoke first.

"Forget what I said earlier. I lost my temper and shot off my mouth. But you were right. I'm not an Aulëndil myself, I just studied under one."

"Let's go for a walk." Celebrimbor said.

They went for several blocks through the narrow streets of Ost-in-Edhil without saying anything. Lamps were lit as the twilight deepened. Finally Celebrimbor broke the silence.

"When I started this new project, I picked the best and the most gifted to assist me. But by the best, I meant the most like Fëanor. Daring, creative, entirely original.

"Fëanor was the greatest craftsman who ever lived, greater than Aulë himself. He made the Palantiri and the Silmarils. Aulë was not able to duplicate them. Fëanor invented and made things that had never been done before or since. That's my ambition for the workshop, to bring it up to Fëanor's standard."

"And you were right. I didn't think you made the cut, even though you have great knowledge of existing techniques, and great skill. But you're not like Fëanor.

"But after I left you this afternoon, I realized something. I was holding you to the wrong standard. You're not like Fëanor, but you don't have to be, because you're like Aulë."

Annatar didn't have anything to say.

"The Ainur walk among us, mostly unnoticed. Is there a rule that you're not supposed to reveal yourselves?"

Annatar looked straight ahead.

"What's Valinor like?" asked Celebrimbor.

"The same as here. Mountain ranges, forests, cultivated fields."

"There's no difference?"

"Smaller pond. Bigger frogs."

"Do you ever see other Ainur in Ost-in-Edhil?"

"Sometimes. They're around." He didn't add that, on the rare occasion he saw someone he knew, he dove into an alley to avoid being seen.

They passed a popular tavern.

"Do you want dinner?" Celebrimbor asked him.

The common room was noisy with conversation, and there was live music that evening. They pushed through the crowd and found a small booth in the back, where they could talk without being overhead.

"My new project will do something that hasn't been done before. It will slow the decay of beautiful things."

Annatar accepted that change was part of the natural order. He saw birth, growth, death, and decay as aspects of the same thing, the cycle of life. He didn't want to preserve things, to freeze them in time the way Celebrimbor did, he only cared about keeping things well ordered.

"Look, if you still want to, why don't you sit in on our discussions and act as an advisor?"

Annatar did sit in on a few meetings, but he wasn't able to contribute anything. He didn't understand the methods they were trying to develop. The discussions were abstract, and he preferred things he could see and touch. His mind wandered.

He was never sure whether they were discussing a new Rings project, or some other magical object, or something intangible like a spell.

Over the next few weeks, Annatar began to confide in Celebrimbor. He told him about his life in Valinor, his apprenticeship with Aulë, and his tense relationship with Curumo, his obnoxious younger brother.

Finally, he spoke of his belief in Aulë's deep affection for his Maiar, in spite of the fact that Aulë was distant and undemonstrative. The discipline he meted out was often the only way they knew he cared about them, or for that matter, was paying attention to them at all. Annatar admitted that, even though he was said to be the favorite, he ached for Aulë's attention and approval.

It was a relief to let down his defenses. He didn't have to watch everything he said as closely. He could be himself with Celebrimbor.

Celebrimbor, in turn, began talking about how had it had been for him, growing up in the shadow of Fëanor. Everyone expected him to be like his famous grandfather, but he was afraid he'd never be as good. He didn't want to be entirely like Fëanor, of course. Celebrimbor was a gentle person, and the violence in his family that had claimed so many lives caused him great sadness.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Annatar was working in the forge when Celebrimbor approached him, a letter in his hand. His face was grim.

"May I speak with you in private?" he said.

It was noon, and the forge was deserted. Everyone else had left for the midday break.

"When you first said you were Mairon Artano, I didn't know whether to believe you, so I wrote to Gil-galad in Lindon. This is his reply, dated ten days ago." He handed the letter to Annatar.

_'Mairon Artano was one of the Maiar of Aulë. He was, in fact, the greatest of Aulë's Maiar. But you may know him by his Sindarin name, Sauron Gorthaur._

_'You didn't say why you were asking, but I assume it's in reference to someone we both know.'_

When he finished reading, Annatar looked up.

"I can explain."

"I doubt it." said Celebrimbor.

"I've repented. I'm doing anonymous good works here as an act of atonement.

"So it won't bother you to learn that, when Gil-galad received my letter, Círdan sailed for Valinor that same day to let them know you were here." said Celebrimbor.

The room began to spin. Annatar gripped the workbench to steady himself.

"Unless, of course, you'd rather be gone by the time they get here." With that, Celebrimbor turned on his heel and left the workshop, slamming the door behind him.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Annatar stood looking at the door. His ears were still ringing; his heart was pounding, too. In his mind's eye, he saw the Host of the Valar bearing down on Angband, overwhelming, unstoppable. He saw Eönwë, achingly disappointed in him.

"I gave you every chance. All you had to do was find Manwë and tell him you were sorry. You best chance for pardon was handed to you on a silver platter, and you didn't take it."

The chance wouldn't be offered again, he knew. He had to leave town, and quickly.

He would leave the workshop now, in the middle of the day. He walked to the forge this morning, so his horse was back at the livery stables near his house. He'd have to walk home as quickly as possible. He would pack, and then retrieve his horse. In an hour, he could be out of Ost-in-Edhil, riding toward Tharbad.

But was it safe to go back to his house? That was the first place they'd look for him, if they didn't find him here. He had to leave from here, and quickly.

All he really needed was a horse and money. Everything else could be abandoned. He would look in the stables and take a horse belonging to one of the other jewel smiths. As for money, there was always a quantity of silver and a little bit of gold in the workshop, the raw materials of their craft.

It was noon, and no one else was around. He went to the safe and opened it. He put all of the gold and as much silver as would fit into his pouch. He left the jewels, because he couldn't use them for money.

It occurred to him, much later, that none of the sixteen Great Rings had been in the safe. Their early essays in the craft weren't there, either. Celebrimbor usually took custody of their finished work, but Sauron didn't know what he did with them.

He wasn't looking for the rings, anyway. He and Celebrimbor never planned to keep their finished work. As a craftsman, it was normal to make things to give away. After all, you could always make another one for yourself later, if you wanted.

They made Great Rings one after another, with no end in sight. But after he and Celebrimbor quarreled and split up, he realized, it was the end. There would be no more.

He slammed the safe shut, but realized later the door didn't latch. He was already halfway across the room and in too much of a hurry to go back and fix it.

A few of the apprentices started coming back from the midday break. One looked at him curiously. He wondered if he'd been observed emptying the safe. He resisted the temptation to look and see if the door was standing open.

He gathered up as many tools as he could carry. He took them into his office and closed the door behind him. The door didn't lock, but he found a small nail and jammed it into the latching mechanism.

He had the sense that he was running out of time. Leave everything. Just go. But in the end, he couldn't bear to leave his notebooks or his tools behind.

He gathered up the notebooks and dumped them in a satchel. There was a piece of paper somewhere on his desk with an outline of a plan he didn't want anyone here to find. He had no time to look for it, so he swept everything on his desktop into the satchel alongside the notebooks to sort through later.

Then he tried to fit in as many tools as he could. He had to leave behind a small hammer he liked because he couldn't make room for it.

He slung the satchel over his shoulder. It was heavier than he expected. He swung a leg over the windowsill and dropped five or six feet to the ground into the alley behind the workshop. Directly across the alley, there was the small stable where the Mírdain kept their horses. He ducked inside. He took the first mount he saw, a large chestnut stallion belonging to one of the other masters.

He saw a woolen cloak hanging on a peg. It probably belonged to one of the grooms. He draped it over his shoulders and pulled the hood low over his face.

Wrapped in a strange cloak and riding a horse that belonged to someone else, he was almost unrecognizable. He took the back streets through the city and left by the North Gate.

As soon as he was clear of the city walls, he rode hard to put as much distance between himself and Ost-in-Edhil as possible. When he was sure he wasn't being followed, he left the road and traveled across country. He rejoined the main road south of the city, and headed in the direction of Tharbad.

When he reached Tharbad, he found a jeweler there who was willing to buy his silver. The jeweler offered a bad exchange rate, but he asked no questions.

Now that Annatar had money, he could buy a meal in a tavern, oats for his horse, and provisions for the road. Home was a long way away, but he was grateful he had a home to go to.

* * *

><p>[1] The Aulëndil, the 'Friends of Aulë', are Noldor Elves who come to Valinor to study under Aulë.<p> 


	2. The Journey to Mordor

**The Journey**

Ephel Dúath, SA 1500

He'd been riding for days along the dusty road that skirted north of the Mountains of Shadow. The mountains loomed up on his right, jagged teeth of new rock almost devoid of vegetation. Pieces of rock broke loose, and occasionally he had to ride around a large boulder that had fallen in the road.

He was going home. Mordor was tantalizingly close, just on the other side of the fence of mountains, but he couldn't cross them. No one could, not easily. When he claimed this land, he invested some of his

own personal power raising them even more, and narrowing or closing the gaps in between them. There was only one way in, and that was through a narrow gap between the Mountains of Shadow and theAshMountains.

Mordor, theBlackLand. It bore that name long before he discovered it, almost five hundred years ago. He'd never lived there, though he'd come here a number of times to visit. He thought of it often. It was an arid expanse of black basalt rock, fenced in by mountains on three sides, veiled in fumes from the burning mountain.

The volcano! It was a manifestation of the living earth, and he loved it. The colors! And the light! And its massive size! It was a thing of great beauty.

He was an earth spirit who'd thrown in his lot with fire spirits. He often felt like he didn't belong anywhere, or that he owed allegiance to two warring sides. The volcano symbolized a merger of both his worlds, and made him feel whole. His own power actually increased when he was near it.

Ever since the War of Wrath, he'd felt the need for a place of safety, a place to withdraw to when he felt threatened. It was fenced in by mountains on three sides and almost unassailable. TheBlackLandwas ideal.

Having a bolt hole made him bolder. When he went to live among the Noldor Elves in Eregion, he knew he was flirting with danger. Before Eregion, he'd lived among primitive peoples in the East who never heard of Valinor, teaching them simple farming techniques, the construction of mills, and the smelting of iron and bronze.

But in Eregion, he was living among Elves, and they had contact with the Valar. He risked being recognized or worse, caught and turned over to the Valar for trial. But they couldn't get him here. He'd wait out the storm until things settled down, then come out again.

Several days earlier, he passed a group of soldiers from Khand who looked at him strangely. It occurred to him that, while his Elvish form let him blend in in Eregion, it made him conspicuous He thought for a while about what a man from the East looked like.

Once he had a clear image in his mind, he shifted into the shorter, stockier form. He gave himself olive skin and black eyes, and made his hair shorter than he had worn it as one of the Noldor Elves.

After he shifted shape, his clothes didn't fit anymore. The sleeves hung over the back of his hands and had to be rolled up. His leggings were too tight around the waist, and the first time he lifted his arms, his shirt ripped. Even his boots didn't fit anymore. His feet swam in them, but they were too tight around his calves.

Finally, he reached the narrow gap between the Mountains of Shadow and theAshMountains. Cirith Gorgor, the Haunted Pass.

The pass was blocked by a stone wall running the length of the space between two cliffs.

The road passed through the wall under a tall arch. The wooden gates stood open. The only obstacle he saw was a pole across the road, painted red and white, and counterweighted at one end. When he approached it, two men came out of the gatehouse and blocked his path.

"Who goes there?"

"I have business with the Steward."

Apparently that was good enough for them. They raised the pole and let him pass. He rode under the arch and entered Mordor.

He traveled south through Udûn toward the next pass. Carach Angren, the Jaws of Iron. Unlike Cirith Gorgor, he hadn't narrowed it when he raised the mountains. It was undefended, and he passed through unchallenged.

He rounded the spur of theAshMountainsand saw the Plain of Gorgoroth spread before him. Orodruin, theBurningMountain, rose thousands of feet from its center. The volcano was erupting. He focused his attention on it and made flames shoot into the sky. He smiled with satisfaction. I've still got it.

To the left, on a promontory of theAshMountains, he could just make out straight lines against a stony background, the silhouette of his fortress. It was under construction, and not yet tall enough to see easily from this distance.

Because its base was so massive, the fortress looked closer than it was. However, he knew from experience, the soonest he could expect to arrive was tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.

He shook the reins and headed for home.


	3. The Hereditary Steward

**The Hereditary Steward  
><strong>TheAshMountains, SA 1500

He finally reached the series of hairpin turns that led up the promontory on which the fortress sat. As he drew closer, he saw that the walls appeared higher and thicker than they did on his last visit, and the towers were taller.

Black pennants fluttered above the walls. Melkor's banner. It occurred to him that, while he would always be Melkor's servant, he was independent now. He should have his own banner. He would keep the black field to honor his Master, but add a heraldic device that was uniquely his own. An anvil, a wolf, a volcano? Whatever he chose, it would be orange-red, the color of coals in the forge.

A tent city had sprung up all around the base of the outer wall. This was home to the stone masons, the manual laborers, and all the people who supported them, the cooks and medics and chandlers.

The outer walls were covered with scaffolding. It was windy, and stone dust from the construction site stung his eyes. He heard the sound of hammer against stone, the shouts of the workmen, the clack-clack of a ratchet as stone blocks were lifted by a crane.

However, he noticed something that bothered him. The weight of the structure was crushing the sometimes fragile volcanic rock beneath it. The uneven settling was causing the western wall to tip outward. He would look for cracks in the foundation once he got inside.

When he reached the main entrance, he dismounted and knocked on a small door set in the massive gate. A spy hole in the door opened, and eyes appeared behind the bars.

"The Lord of theBlackLandhas returned." he announced.

Sauron knew he didn't look like a great lord. He didn't even look respectable. He was traveling without retainers, dressed in the same clothes he was wearing in the workshop. His cloak, made from course wool, belonged to a servant. He was grimy from travel, and had two or three days' growth of beard.

The cover over the window slid closed. He waited. About five minutes later, he heard a bar being withdrawn, and the door was opened to admit him.

"My Lord? I am the Steward of Lugbúrz."

The Steward looked like an Easterling, probably from Khand. He wore the bright colors of the East, and his eyes were lined with kohl.

"Please come in, my Lord, and welcome." said the Steward, still looking a little doubtful. "I'm sorry, but I really don't know who you are. I've never seen you before."

Generations could pass between his infrequent visits. He had to reestablish his credentials each time he came here. The Stewardship of Lugbúrz was a hereditary position, so he was often met at the gate by the grandson or great-grandson of the Steward he'd met on his last visit.

The only thing to do was act confident and walk in like he owned the place. He led his mount through the door, and tossed the reins to a soldier.

"See to my horse, Sirrah."

He looked around the courtyard and noted the progress that had been made since his last visit. The keep was several stories taller. Secondary towers at the corners of the walls, thick walled and round, had been started. Within the walls, there were many new wooden structures, laid out like houses in a small village.

"How long will you be staying with us?" the Steward asked.

"It's permanent this time. I'm moving my base of operations to Mordor." he answered.

The steward took him on a tour of the fortress. He wanted to see his workshop again, and put away the things he brought with him. He set off in that direction, with the steward following him.

"You can't go in there. It's forbidden. The room is sealed."

He spoke a charm to break the seal. The latch lifted easily. He stepped in and looked around. It was just as he had left it. The Steward joined him a minute or two later with a lamp, which he set on a counter.

There was a shelf above the workbench which held a row of leather-bound notebooks. Their spines were numbered and they were arranged in order, one through twenty. He took a notebook down from the shelf, set it down on the workbench, and opened it to a random page. It was filled with his slanted script, precise drawings, and equations full of symbols.

He opened his satchel and pulled out another notebook. It was the same size and color as the one already lining the shelf. It's spine was numbered twenty-one. He opened it and put it on the workbench next to the first one. The handwriting was the same, and so were the drawings and equations. From the corner of his eye, he watched the Steward making the connection.

He took all his notebooks from the satchel and shelved them with the others. There were twenty three notebooks in all. Then he unpacked his tools and put them away, calipers with calipers, auls with auls, without ever opening a wrong drawer.


	4. Moving In

**Moving In**

TheAshMountains, SA 1500

"I don't have a room made up for you, so I'll give you mine until we can prepare something suitable. Let me show you where it is." said the Steward.

He led the way to the spiral stair built in the wall of the Keep and climbed three or four flights. The Steward opened an iron-bound door and showed him a comfortable room. There was a small fireplace with a carved stone mantle. The windows looked out on the volcano, scarcely ten miles away. He watched for a minute as orange lava shot up in fountains and ran down the sides of the cinder cone. His power was greatest when he was close to Orodruin.

"About dinner tonight. We're a frontier outpost here, and I'm afraid you may find the fare somewhat primitive."

"Whatever you make for yourselves is fine."

"We have meat only once in a while. We rarely have fruit, and there's almost never any wine or milk. Dinner tonight will probably be bread and cheese, with boiled cabbage if we're lucky."

"That's fine. I'm not picky."

At dinner, he met the officers and officials who oversaw the building of his fortress, the running of his army, and the breeding of orcs. The Steward must have already established his bona fides with them, because they spoke to him with deference.

After the evening meal and some talk around the table, he went up to the well-appointed room to get ready for bed.

This was a rough frontier outpost, but they'd done a good job creating a few luxuries. The bed was canopied, with embroidered hangings, and big enough for at least two people. The coverlet was silk. The chairs had embroidered cushions. There were chests for clothes, a substantial desk, and woven tapestries to soften the rough stone walls.

The room looked like one in Utunmo, the same rough stone walls, the same comfortable furnishings in otherwise primitive conditions. The moment he closed the door behind him, he felt apprehensive. Why was that? He was happy to be here. He had come home.

He started to get undressed for bed, but felt so anxious he had to stop. He couldn't imagine why he was lightheaded, why his skin was clammy. Then he remembered.

Melkor walked to the door and locked it, then turned around to watch him. He heard Melkor order him to undo the buttons on his shirt. He tried, but he couldn't, because his hands were shaking too hard. 'Do you need help?' The sound of fabric ripping.

Stop it. It never happened. He shook his head to clear it.

There was no way he was getting into that bed. He took a pillow from the bed and lay down on the cold stone floor, wrapped in his cloak. He fell asleep in the clothes he'd traveled in. Tomorrow, he would find a suitable room and furnish it with a hard, narrow cot. Then he could sleep without nightmares.

The next day, he explored the Keep and found a room he liked. It was on the highest level, and it had a view of the volcano.

"Bring me a cot, a simple clothes chest, and a table for writing."

"How about tapestries, rugs, cushions?" asked the Steward.

"No."

"Feather beds, silk bed coverings?"

"No, all I want is a pillow and a wool blanket."

"That's how we'd furnish a servant's room. Your rank demands more than that, Lord Sauron." said the Steward.

"Even so, that's what I want."

He paused in the doorway and turned back.

"Oh, there's one more thing. In your role as Steward, let people know they should call me Tar-Mairon. It means 'Admirable King'. I don't want the word 'Sauron' to be spoken or written by anyone in Mordor. Ever."

"What? That isn't you name?" said the steward, surprised.

"It's an insult the Elves used to shout at me. No, it isn't my name. And I'd rather not hear it spoken again, ever."

"Might I ask, what is your real name? Or do sorcerers keep that a secret?" asked the steward.

"My real name is Mairon. It means 'admirable'."


	5. The First Assembly

**The First Assembly**

TheAshMountains, SA 1500

He needed to establish his authority right away.

He ruled by fear. He wanted to be feared, but not so much that they would hate him. The trick was to be consistent. He could rule with an iron fist, but he had to be predictable. If his people knew what offense would provoke what reaction, they could deal with it. But he couldn't rule by fear alone. There had to be something in it for them, too. They would follow him if they saw him as a source of food, and safety.

They had heard of him before. One of the Steward's duties was to remind people that the Dark Lord owned this place, and they were his servants. But Sauron was of a colorful legend to them, not a real person who might appear one day show up and disrupt their routines.

He called an assembly of all his nobles and their sergeants and assistants. He summoned up a tremendous thunderstorm, to blot out the sun and make it possible for the orcs to be outside during the day.

"People of Mordor, I am the Lord of theBlackLand. Five hundred years ago, I discovered this land and claimed it as my own. None dwelled here except the Spider in Cirith Ungol."

He looked out over the sea of upturned faces. The fortress's courtyard was packed.

"For those of you who do not know me, I am an Ancient Evil from the Depths of the Earth."

They looked skeptical.

He shape-shifted into a Balrog. He wasn't a Balrog, of course. Balrogs were Fire spirits. He was an Earth spirit who hung around with Fire spirits.

The crowd gasped. He held the pose for just a few moments, then shifted back. Any longer, and his clothes would catch fire.

Afterwards, he gathered all his nobles to receive their oaths of fealty. One after another, they knelt before him and placed their hands between his, and swore the oath. They were bound to obey him, serve him, and never raise a hand against him. There was one who ignored the summons, either from infirmity or from stubbornness, it wasn't clear which. Sauron sent him a warning that if he, or a family member representing him, didn't appear within a week, his title and lands would be given away to someone else.

He also began to set up an infrastructure for administering his realm. First, he needed to set up a network of informants. He needed to know what everyone from the nobles to the most humble of the orc foot-soldiers cared about.

He also needed a personal guard. He found a dozen of the strongest labors and foot soldiers and arranged for them to become as his bodyguards


	6. A New Dark Lord

**A New Dark Lord**

TheAshMountains, SA 1500

He stood on a box with his arms raised, doing what he was told, not complaining even when the man stuck him with pins.

The man in question was a tiny old tailor, stooped with age. He had a measuring tape draped around his neck and a mouth full of pins. He arranged and pinned fabric expertly, then stood back to study the effect. The experience was both intimate and impersonal. The man touched him without asking. At the same time, he was so focused on his work, he seemed to have forgotten his client was there.

Sauron remembered how he used to fasten Melkor into his armor. He'd kneel at his feet and work the buckles of sabatons and greaves and knee caps. It was like tacking up a horse. When he did the thigh plates, he'd touch the inside of his thigh without asking permission, having forgotten Melkor was even there.

He told himself that even if he'd gone home to pack, he'd need all new clothes anyway. His old clothes wouldn't fit him anyway, now that he was Mannish rather than Elven. Plus, the styles in the East were entirely different from Eregion.

The tailor was making him a sable robe from finest cashmere wool. It would be hooded, with long sleeves and a hem that swept the floor. When he wore it, none would doubt he was a Dark Lord.

He had never called himself a Dark Lord before. It was Melkor's title, not his. He wanted to honor Melkor's memory, not usurp him. He would be the Second Dark Lord, then.

The day before, he told the Steward he needed some clothes for walking around the construction site and hiking up the volcano. A servant brought him some garments that wouldn't get wrecked with rough use.

The tailor folded up the black fabric and gathered up his tools. As he was about to leave, he stopped and looked him over.

"You know, your eyes look weird. It will attract attention around here."

Now that he had dark eyes, he'd though his cat-slit pupils didn't show. Well, it's a racial trait. It's not something I can change.

The tailor pulled out a tin of kohl and showed him how to paint a black line around each eye.

"Much better. Now you look normal."

He studied his reflection in a silver hand mirror. He looked like he'd been in a drunken brawl the night before. "I don't know if I can get used to this."

"It will improve your vision, especially in bright sunlight. But be sure you wash it off at night. You don't ever want to fall asleep wearing it, because it will sting."


	7. Planning a Fortress

**Planning a Fortress**

TheAshMountains, SA 1500

That night, he sat at a table in his room, drawing on a large sheet of paper. He pulled the table close to the small fireplace to take advantage of the light.

And the heat, too. The day had been warm, but in an arid climate like this, it got chilly after dark. Even with a fire burning in the grate in front of him, he needed a cloak over his shoulders to keep his back warm.

He held a stick of lead in one hand, which he used to sketch the outlines of walls and towers. When he needed to change something, he broke off a pinch of bread he'd brought for the purpose, and rolled it into a ball to use as an eraser.

He crumpled a discarded piece of paper into a ball and tossed it toward the grate, but it hit the side of the fireplace and bounced back into the room. He sighed. He had never been very coordinated.

He was drafting the plans for his fortress, which didn't yet have a name. The design was more ambitious than anything build since Angband. Its footprint would be massive, over a mile in diameter. Its tower would be the tallest ever built. The fortress would be the largest in Arda, and unassailable.

The encircling mountains, and the inhospitality of the land within, formed the greater part of his defenses. But he also wanted a fortress. He started to think about it as soon as he decided Mordor was the place of safety he'd retreat to when he felt threatened.

He surveyed a number of sites. He identified strategic places first. There were two routes into Mordor that invaders might follow.

The main route, passed through Udûn from the north. He took that route when he came here. At least one of the two gaps, Cirith Gorgor or Carach Angren, had to be defended.

A second, more difficult route from the west went through a high mountain pass in the Mountains of Shadow. However, the Spider had her lair there. She guarded the way in. The Spider wasn't exactly his ally, but they knew about each other and accepted each other's presence.

There were no mountains and no defenses of any kind facing east, but he didn't see the need for them. The land east of here was empty.

Both Carach Angren and the Spider's Pass had views of the burning mountain. He finally admitted to himself that being able to see theBurningMountainwas important to him. In fact, it was driving the selection of the site. It wasn't just about the view, either. He'd noticed his personal power increased when he was close to the volcano.

He decided to build on a spur of theAshMountains, just ten miles from Orodruin. He would fortify Cirith Gorgor, too. That would be a separate structure, but built at the same time as theAshMountainfortress.

The next step was to draw up plans for construction. Back in Ost-in-Edhil, he spent evenings at home sketching walls and gates and towers. He thought about digging wells, and siege defenses, and storerooms and great halls. Every time he visited the site, he brought more drawings with him.

He never mentioned the project to the Elves, no matter how friendly he was with them, and he never worked on any drawings or wrote down any notes about it during the day at the Gwaith-i-Mírdain.

He kept his drawings and notes in a locked box under a loose floorboard in his bedroom, with a heavy chest pushed over it for good measure. Probably some of them are still there. I wasn't able to go home and get them.

Then he remembered something left behind.

That wasn't the only secret project I was working on. There's another set of notes under the floorboards. Oh well, either they've been found or they haven't. There's nothing I can do about it now.

He turned his attention back to the plans in front of him.

A small castle could be built in one or two years in an emergency, with three stone masons and about a hundred laborers. The thing that determined time to complete was the site, and whether the raw materials were found locally or had to be brought in from somewhere else. The timbers had to be brought from a long way away, but all the basalt and granite needed for construction of the walls and towers could be quarried on site. The material taken out of the hole dug for the foundation provided a great deal of the stone required for building the inner curtain wall and the keep.

When he arrive the other day and saw the latest additions in person, he felt disappointed. It wasn't as large as he expected. And it never would be. The basalt cliff was being crushed. It was actually collapsing under the weight of the unfinished structure.

He wondered if he could design a foundation that would support the weight of a gigantic tower and some huge curtain walls around it. The foundation would be made of stone blocks, the same kind of stone as the bedrock the fortress currently rested on. But blocks cemented together are less strong than solid rock. It wasn't a problem he could solve right now. He threw down his drawing lead in frustration.

He'd been here for three or four days now. There wasn't a single person in Mordor he knew well. He knew the Steward's name and that he was married, but that was all. He knew the names of a few other people, but almost nothing about them.

Even having a conversation was difficult here. He could speak the Easterling language, but had to translate word for word. In a way, it was a relief to be around the Orcs, who spoke the same Black Speech spoken in Utumno. Back in Eregion, he had become fluent Sindarin to the extent that the Valarin he spoke in his own head began to include Sindarin words and phrases.

He was badly homesick for Eregion. He missed the people of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, the familiar routine, and above all, his friendship with Celebrimbor. Those last few weeks, when he dropped his guard and confessed to being Mairon servant of Aulë, he wished he could recapture that time, and make it last longer.

He shoved his chair back roughly. The need to be with other people was like hunger or thirst. Where could he find other people at this hour? They might still be in the Great Hall playing a game called chess, which all Easterlings seemed to know. He'd never heard of it before and didn't know how to play, but he could stand at the table with the others, watching the game.


	8. He Does Not Share Power

**He Does Not Share Power**

TheAshMountains, SA 1500

He assembled his lieutenants for a Council meeting. He studied the faces of the people around the table. He was concerned about one of them, a young man who rolled his eyes when Sauron spoke at council meetings and interrupted him when he was speaking. It was an expression of contempt, and it had to be nipped it in the bud.

That night, he was having dinner with his Steward. He waited until a servant entered the room. Then he leaned toward the Steward and spoke in a low voice, as if sharing a confidence.

"The Council meeting today reminded me of one long ago, in another country.

"I was running the meeting, and I had the sense that one of my lieutenants was mocking me. His words were polite but his tone was .. amused. And when I spoke, he studied his nails as if he were bored.

"Then he leaned across the table and reached for a page of my notes. I shot him a warning look, but he put his hand on it and pulled it towards himself. I pulled out a knife and plunged it into the back of his hand. The hilt vibrated from the force. Everyone in the room gasped. He screamed and tried to pull his hand free, but he couldn't. Blood soaked the paper and spread across the table. I just continued the meeting as though nothing had happened." He laughed.

The Steward looked at him, shocked.

"What, you don't think that's funny?" Sauron asked.

The servant, who had given up any pretense of refilling their wine goblets, stood there hugging the pitcher.

"Don't worry. Most of the time, I have better control of my temper. As long as people treat me with respect, they needn't fear me."

The story was just that, a story, but it served its purpose. From then on, the young nobleman's attitude towards him was deferential to the point of being subservient.

ooooo

He was far more concerned about another of his lieutenants, a middle-aged nobleman with a pinched face. The man enjoyed more independence under the Steward than he did under this new Lord. The reports said he chaffed under the tight rein Sauron kept him on, and wondered aloud whether he was really had supernatural powers.

He'd thought his shape-shifting demonstration, his show of power, would have silenced all dissent. But people were saying it was just a magician's trick, like calling up the storm.

Then Sauron heard some really disturbing news. The man was talking to others about challenging him for the Lordship of this land. He had the man arrested.

Under questioning, the man gave up the names of several others. He had them arrested and questioned, too. Some were the ones he'd spoken to about the plot, and some were names given at random, a known hazard of harsh questioning methods. Satisfied he'd identified all those involved, Sauron ordered them hanged.

On the day of execution, the courtyard was filled to capacity. There was ominous murmuring in the crowd, because the man had been popular. Sauron stood surrounded by his personal guard, but even so, it was dangerous to provoke an angry crowd.

The traitor was brought to the scaffold first. The man stood beside the noose with his hands tied behind his back.

In the back of the courtyard, he saw a woman trying to push her way through the crowd, reaching her arms toward the scaffold. Two or three crying children followed her. He sent a few of his men-at-arms to remove them before they created a scene.

"This man sought to challenge me for the Lordship of theBlackLand. That was a mistake." Sauron announced in a loud, clear voice.

He gave the order. The man was lifted until just his toes were touching the scaffold. He fought desperately for life, but after what seemed like a long time, he stopped struggling and was still.

Sauron didn't order the body cut down right away, but left him hanging for several days as an example to anyone else who might defy him.

Next, two more men were brought to the scaffold, their hands bound behind their backs. The remaining nooses were placed around their necks.

"I just hanged a traitor. Now I will hang two men who have done nothing."

There was angry murmuring from the crowd.

"The traitor asked them to join the plot to overthrow and take my place, and they did nothing. They should have come to me without delay, and warned me."

He understood why they'd acted the way they had. The traitor had been their friend, and their new Lord was still a stranger to them. From what others said of them, they were good men. He wanted to scare them, but had no intention of hurting them, beyond what had been done to them already.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Spare them! For pity sake, spare their lives!" He knew this was going to happen. He'd placed an actor in the crowd to speak the line. Others took up the cry.

"Spare them! Spare them!" The courtyard reverberated with their chanting.

Sauron confronted the first man. "Why should I spare you?"

"I did wrong, I'm sorry, I am so very, very sorry. I will come to you the instant I hear you are threatened in any way. I swear it. I swear it upon the lives of my children." Tears ran down his face.

He turned to the second man. "And you?"

"Spare me, and I will become your most devoted servant. I live my life as an example of loyalty to yourself and your interests. I swear it upon my honor, with Ilúvatar as my witness."

Sauron considered for a few moments. The crowd kept chanting. "Let them go." he said to the hangman.

ooooo

He retired early that night. During the day, probably while he was conducting the execution, workmen sank heavy iron staples in the stone wall on either side of his bedroom door, and set a thick wooden bar between them. There was still sawdust and wood shavings in the doorway.

He was about to say something sarcastic about the usefulness of putting a bar on the inside of a door that opened outward. Then he noticed they'd reworked hinges, too. They were on the inside now.


	9. A Good Foundation

**A Good Foundation**

TheAshMountains, SA 1500

The bedrock under the fortress was, in fact, settling unevenly under the weight of the fortress. It was most noticeable at the cliff at the tip of the promontory, he'd seen it on the ride in. But he was more concerned about the foundations beneath what would be the largest tower.

The pit for its foundations had been surveyed and partially excavated. Already it looked like a great yawning pit, its bottom hard to see, but he knew it had barely been started. He was starting to believe that there was no foundation he could build that would support the tower he wanted to build. There was always the option of scaling back his plans and building something smaller, but he didn't want to do that.

He was beginning to think, if he was going to build the tower he envisioned, he'd have to put his own power into its foundations. He'd already sunk so much of his power into the encircling mountains, he could feel it. And now he might need to spend that much again on the foundations of his tower. He could undo the mountains to try to recover what he'd put into them, but it was unlikely that he'd get more than a tiny fraction of it back.

He turned his attention to the construction in progress. The tower they were living in was more complete than the others, but it was still surrounded by cranes and scaffolding, and

a layer or two of stones was added to it every day. It was already a storey taller than it had been when he arrived last week.


	10. Celebrimbor's Betrayal

**Celebrimbor's Betrayal**

Lugbúrz, SA 1592

9:00 am

Sauron sat at the table he used as a desk, skimming each page in a stack of reports from his agents.

Whenever reports came in from Sauron's extensive network of spies, he and his Steward sat down together to go through them. Sauron would look them over, and when he found something interesting, he would read it aloud and his Steward would write it down for him.

"I wish you'd let me screen those for you and just give you the highlights, Tar-Mairon." said his Steward.

"That would be a good idea, except that I have trouble delegating." said Sauron.

His Steward, the great-grandson of the steward who greeted him when he first came here to live, was his right hand man and most trusted advisor. He was also one of the few people in Lugbúrz who called him by his given name.

Sauron skimmed a report from Eregion and froze. He went back to the beginning and read it carefully, to see if he could be mistaken. He wasn't.

He got up so abruptly his chair tipped over and struck the floor.

"How could he? I will effing kill him!"

He put a hand under the edge of the table and knocked it over. Paper, ink, and quills went flying. He looked for something to break.

"What happened? asked the Steward, edging towards the door.

"My closest friend betrayed me."

Sauron paced back and forth, clenching his fists and breathing hard.

"At least I thought he was my closest friend. We worked together to make the Great Rings. I taught him everything I knew, and he used it to make things greater than he ever could have made by himself.

"But all the while, he was developing secret knowledge of his own that he withheld from me. He went on to make rings in secret, without me."

"How do you know?"

"The report doesn't say much, except that Celebrimbor was heard to tell someone he sent the Three into hiding last year.

"Three of the sixteen?"

"No, I don't think so. Otherwise why just three of them, and why now? I think he made three more rings after I left, different from any that came before, greater and more powerful."

"I think you're reading a lot into one report." said the Steward.

"Oh really? Right around the time I left Eregion, he was working on something in secret, but I never really understood what it was. He used me for my knowledge, and when he'd learned all he could, he discarded me.

"I'm going to punish him for it. I'm going to take back everything he built using my knowledge, and that includes the Three."

Sauron resolved to attack Eregion. He'd been breeding Orcs for a century, and had close to enough to field a small army. At that moment, he was prepared to march on Ost-in-Edhil and take the Gwaith-i-Mírdain by force.

He was desperate to recover the Three. He believed wearing them could increase his own power, which the other Great Rings did not. He wanted to know how they were made. And he wanted to keep them out of the hands of anybody else.

"He still has the sixteen rings, which he couldn't have made without my help. I should have taken them with me when I left."

"The Three are different from the others, but Celebrimbor couldn't have made any of them without the skills I taught him. By rights, the Great Rings belong to me. All of them. And I'm going to take them back."

Which was going to be difficult. He didn't know where they were, or who had them. He didn't know anything about them.

He thought for a few minutes.

"But I don't need to have actual physical possession of the Three. I don't even need to know where they are. I just need to control them."

But how? Bind them to something even more powerful than themselves. Except that, at the moment, no such thing existed.

He would make the Ring he'd wanted to make for himself, and he would bind the Three to it.

"Help me put the table back the way it was. And bring me some more ink, this has all soaked into the carpet."

He picked up the chair he knocked over, and gathered up sheets of paper from the floor. The Steward returned with a new inkwell.

"Close the door when you leave. And don't let anyone else in to see me."

"Will that be all, then?" asked the Steward.

"Bring me my notebooks from the workshop."

He looked out the window at Orodruin, thinking. He heard the door being pulled closed.

To bind the Three, he had to make the One. He could do this.

When he came to Mordor from Eregion ninety years ago, he brought a finished design for the Ring. He could have forged it right then, and he would have, except that he got so busy with everyday matters like establishing himself as Dark Lord, breeding Orcs, and building his fortress.

He would forge it now. He would check the finished design for completeness and change it if necessary. He needed to identify the tools needed, and if he didn't have them already, he would need to make them. And he would need to prepare a quantity of the alloy from which the Ring would be made.

He remembered the first time he thought about making a Ring for himself. It was the day they made the first of the Great Rings. After it was finished, he secretly tried it on. He felt nothing. The next day, he told Celebrimbor what he'd done. Celebrimbor tried it on too, and Sauron could tell from his face that he felt something pretty impressive.

Celebrimbor said the more native power you had, the more you felt it. Of course, Celebrimbor couldn't have known at the time that Sauron's power was far beyond his own.

Sauron guessed that the Rings amplified power up to a certain point, but after that, they stopped working. Consequently, the Great Rings enhanced the natural abilities of Elves, but they didn't work for him. Acquiring a Great Ring and wearing it himself would have been pointless.

If he wanted a Ring for himself, he would have to make something far stronger than the ones they were making for the Elves.

He didn't tell Celebrimbor he wanted to enhance his Maia powers. After all, Celebrimbor didn't even know he was a Maia.

But at home, he worked late into the evening filling up notebook after notebook with ideas. He considered a number of designs to enhance his Maia abilities, like shaping the landforms of the Earth, influencing the Free Peoples, or controlling the creatures of Melkor.

But before he made any of his designs, he had to find a heat source.

All his designs required temperatures that could be found only in dragon's fire. The dragons that could product that kind of heat were extinct, but even if they weren't, he would have had a hard time winning their cooperation.

Soon after, he left Eregion for a couple of weeks and made a secret trip to Mordor. When he arrived, he climbed the slopes of Orodruin, which he did whenever he was in Mordor.

The volcano sprang to life as he approached. Looking down into the caldera, he had an idea. Instead of dragon's fire, what if I used the volcano for the forging? Would it be hot enough? He wasn't sure. How would he get to the lava? How would he avoid dropping his work, or falling in? What sort of tools could withstand those temperatures, and how would he make them?

Over the next several trips, he enlarged a chamber around the Cracks of Doom, and set up his workshop there. His workshop, the Sammath Naur. He did some simple projects to practice using lava as a heat source. After that, he could have made the Ring any time he was in Mordor. He had a workable design, and he had something hot enough to forge it in.

A servant came back with his notebooks. The tall stack of leather bound volumes reached almost to his chin. Somewhere in there was the design he was going to build, the one that would magnify his power.

"Put them anywhere." He waved his hand towards the corner of the table.

He arranged the notebooks in order, which was easy since he'd numbered the spines. He picked up the first one and skimmed through it.

It all came back to him. The earliest entries were about amplifying a specific Maia ability, like the ability to find gold and minerals deep underground.

In the middle of the series, there were a number of designs like Languages, which enhanced the ability to learn other tongues easily, or Structures, which would make him able to strengthen fortifications with enchantments.

In some cases, the designs weren't as mature as he remembered. Or he'd used part of one design in another without realizing it didn't fit. Or a design had unresolved flaws he hadn't noticed before.

Each time he found a new design, he wrote its name on the top of a blank sheet of paper. Then he filled in the rest of the sheet with a description of what it did, a schematic of how it worked, and any drawings, diagrams, or calculations he thought might be useful.

noon

He wrote furiously. Bymidday, he'd filled every sheet of paper he had, and sent for more. A servant returned with new writing materials, and also food and drink, but he left it untouched. He didn't want to stop writing long enough to eat.

In the last few notebooks, he began finding finished designs. He could have taken them to Orodruin and forged them at any time.

By the time he closed the last notebook, he'd found three finished designs, Influence, Landforms, and War. Each would enhance one of his native abilities. Influence would enhance his ability to influence and persuade the Free Peoples of Arda. Landforms would magnify his ability to shape landforms like mountains and rivers, and War would help him raise an army and lead it to victory.

He cleared the table of everything else and arranged the sheets with the three finished designs in front of him. He looked at them with satisfaction. Logical, compete, and well thought out. They represented some of his best work.

But something was bothering him. He couldn't find the design he was looking for. It was his best designs of all, the one he intended to make. It was a composite of the specialized designs, and it would amplify all his abilities at once. He had a distinct memory of working on it, and he was sure it was among the finished designs, but he couldn't find it.

3:00 pm

His Steward looked in in mid-afternoon, and brought him a mug of tea. He waited a few minutes, but Sauron was in the middle of a thought and didn't want to be interrupted. The Steward set the mug at his elbow, and began to withdraw.

"Wait!"

It must be in one of the more recent notebooks, possibly even the one he was keeping right now.

"Go to my bedroom and get the notebook on my desk. If it's not there, look in the bottom of my clothes chest."

A few minutes later, the steward returned with the notebook in his hand. Sauron leafed through it. It was filled with plans for construction of the fortress, particularly the massive central tower they hadn't yet been able to build. He found lists of all the things the Ring should do, but there were no finished designs, or even rough outlines for designs.

He reached the last page. It wasn't there. The design he'd planned to make wasn't there. If it were anywhere, it would have been in this, his current notebook.

With a sinking feeling, he remembered the notebook he'd left behind under the floorboards in his house in Eregion. He slammed his fist on the table.

He couldn't go back and get it, obviously. But the notebooks he kept before it should contain the early work leading up to the composite design. He should be able to reconstruct it from that.

He went back and leafed through the older notebooks. There was no trace of the composite design, not so much as a short description or a rough sketch. Increasingly frustrated, he called his Steward over.

"Can you have a look at this for me? I'm not seeing what's right in front of me."

"You're handwriting is legible, but its written in a language I don't know."

The Steward closed the notebook and handed it back to him. The notebooks were written in Valarin, Sauron's mother tongue, with a number of Sindarin words and phrases thrown in. He wrote the way he spoke in his head.

He was surprised his Steward couldn't read his notes. Sindarin was the most widely spoken language in Arda, and included words like Mordor (BlackLand), Gorgoroth (Horror of Horrors), and Orodruin (Mountain Burning). And Lugbúrz (Prison Dark) and Ash Nazg (One Ring) were technically Valarin phrases, because Black Speech was pigeon Valarin. Melkor had many admirable traits, but originality wasn't one of them.

He flipped through the pages some more, but didn't see anything.

"Somewhere, I have a finished design that combines the best features of all the others. I can't find it, but I know it's there. I'll find it if I keep looking."

"Or not. Something like that happened to my cousin. He wanted to buy a horse, so he went to a horse fair and looked at dozens of horses. At the end of the day, he hadn't seen anything he liked. Then, when he woke up the next morning, he remembered he'd seen the perfect animal. It was a chestnut color, with sound legs, good bloodlines, and not too expensive.

"He raced over to the fairgrounds to be there before they opened. He talked to every trader he'd met the day before, with no luck. He did find one horse with the same pretty chestnut color, but it was swaybacked. Another had the same nice shape, but it had a terrible disposition. And the one with impressive bloodlines was ruinously expensive. He searched everywhere, but he never did find his horse."

"Oh." Sauron said, very quietly.

He closed the notebook and put it down with the others. He had a feeling the notebook under the floorboards contained fortress designs, and nothing else.

He hadn't worked seriously on the Ring since Eregion. In the century since then, the specialized designs had run together in his head. The design that did everything, the one he wanted to build, didn't exist.

He was disappointed, but the only thing to do was press on. He had a number of specialized designs to choose from, all finished and ready to go. He would pick one and make it, and then he would bind the Three.

He arranged the pages of finished designs in front of him and reviewed each one, Influence, Landforms, and War, in turn. How mature was the design? Was it structurally sound or unstable? How hard would it be to make? And finally, much of his own power had to go into it? Some designs cost more than others, but all of them cost more than he wanted to spend.

Unfortunately, Structures did not make the cut. That was a disappointment. It was one of the designs he attached great importance to. It would have allowed him to strengthen the foundations for his Tower and still bind the Three. However, it was not as mature as he remembered.

He didn't like having to choose a specialized design. Whatever he chose, he had to give up something else. Influence and Structures were his first choices, but they were all important to him.

The fact that he had to put his own power into the Ring was a sore point with him. Neither he nor Celebrimbor put any of their own power into the sixteen Great Rings. He felt he shouldn't have to do so for his.

Actually, his early designs for the Rings of Power did require an infusion of personal power. It was Celebrimbor who figured out how to rework the design so it wasn't required.

He decided to make Influence. He saw being persuasive as his most important attribute. It helped him wield political influence, lead an army, and talk his way out of a bad spot. He was already manipulative and deceptive, and he lied with great skill. It was the basis of his power, so that was the attribute he chose to enhance.

He made his decision, but he wasn't happy. The specialized designs cost more and did less than he remembered. All day, he'd been making compromises and lowering his expectations, but he was afraid he hadn't reached the bottom yet.

6:00 pm

The light outside faded. A servant came in to light the lamps. He sent him to get more paper and ink.

There was a knock on the door.

"What?"

His Steward came in, carrying a tray.

"I said 'What?' I didn't say 'Come in.'"

The Steward set the tray down on a chair. There wasn't a free space on the table anywhere.

"I brought you something to eat." said the Steward. He fixed him a plate and set it down at his elbow.

"I'm not hungry." said Sauron.

"Suit yourself." he said, fixing a plate for himself. He pulled a chair over to the table and sat down.

"Well, I am hungry, but I don't want to stop right now."

"Take a break. Five minutes won't kill you."

Sauron pushed some papers aside to clear a space.

"So, what's going on?" asked the Steward.

"This morning, I was so sure I could do it. And I can, but I'm not happy about it."

"What's the problem?"

"It does less than expected, and costs more than I planned to spend."

"Well, can you afford it?"

"Technically yes, but it's not that simple. I have the resources, but I'd planned to spend them on something else. Now I have to choose."

"Between what and what?"

"Making the Ring, or strengthening the foundations of the Tower."

"You can't give up the Tower." The Steward looked appalled.

"The stone blocks are all ready, after centuries of work. The fittings, door hinges and window glass and roof slates, are sitting in workshops ready to go. Once the foundations are strengthened, the Tower just needs to be assembled. It will go up quickly. You can't abandon the Tower, not now!"

The Steward was right. Sauron was in charge, but his Steward was his chief advisor, and he should at least listen to what he had to say.

"Let's say I listened to you and stayed with my plan to strengthen the foundations. I'd have to give up plans to make the Ring, and with it, any hope of binding the Three."

"Are they important? You only learned of their existence this morning."

"I want to punish Celebrimbor."

He realized he was clenching his teeth. He stared off in the distance, lost in thought.

He was at home in the Mansions of Aulë, which for some reason was also the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. Tharbad was nearby, but so was the Circle of Doom. He sat at his place at the long table with the other Maiar and the Aulëndil. For some reason, the Jewel Smiths were there too.

He spent his days working with Celebrimbor in the workshops at the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, and at night, he climbed the stairs to the apprentices' dormitory, and slept in the same bed he did when he was young.

Then, Celebrimbor said something that made Aulë turn against him. He'd committed an evil deed? He wasn't a good craftsman? Sauron never did learn what it was.

When he went up to the dormitory, he saw that his bed had been stripped, and that his clothes chest was empty. Downstairs, his workbench had been swept bare. His tools and his work were gone. As soon as he realized he was in trouble, he knew he has to leave, immediately. There were no people around, anywhere. He never had a chance to say goodbye to anybody, not even Aulë.

He stepped out into the street. The heavy door swung of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain closed behind him and clicked shut. He spun around, startled. He pounded on the door and tried to open the latch, but the door was barred against him forever.

He shook his head to clear it.

"No, I have to bind the Three. I'm going to take back what's mine."

"You'd give up the Tower to punish Celebrimbor?"

"I'd give up the Tower to make my Ring and bind the Three."

"Can you bind the Three? Are you willing to bet the Tower on it?"

He had no idea. He didn't know anything about them.

"Yes." he said.

"You do realize you're being irrational?" said the Steward.

7:00 pm

After the Steward left, he sat down at the table and thought about what to do next.

Even though they disagreed, the Steward had, in fact, talked him out of making Influence if it meant giving up the Tower. But he also knew he was still going to make his Ring.

He opened his current notebook, the one the steward brought from his room, and began writing. His first thought was to make the Structures design. Then he could use the Ring to strengthen the foundations, and still bind the Three.

But he knew that if he made a Ring, it would have to be a composite design. Influence, Landforms, Structures, War, Languages, and Creatures, they were all important.

He would merge the specialized designs into a single unified whole. But how? They were all so different, for the most part, they weren't mutually compatible. As an experiment, he tried to modify Landforms to include Structures, but in spite of their similarity, the composite was unstable and would have fallen apart. He tried again with Influence and Languages, but he couldn't merge them, either.

10:00 pm

He rarely stayed up past nine orten o'clockat night, but late in the evening, he was still at his desk, trying to make it work.

I'm looking at this wrong. I'm trying to create a composite by merging specialized designs. What I need is something general purpose, something that will enhance any attribute I happen to have.

He started over from scratch.

He thought about fundamental principles, and was careful not to get caught up in details. Soon he had a rough outline for a general design he thought would work. It could be used to strengthen the foundations. It would magnify his influence over others. It would help him to raise an army and achieve victory in battle.

Close tomidnight, the pieces started falling into place. It was an excellent design, better than anything he'd done before. But it would take time to finish. Still, he felt confident that he could complete it in under ten years.

He worked through the calculations to find out how much it would cost. Each of the specialized designs took as much as he was willing to spend, and more than he was happy about. He expected the general design to cost him even more.

He added up the numbers, then leaned back in his chair, reeling in shock. It wasn't just more than he was willing to part with, it was more than he had.

Midnight

He was stalled. When the watch changed atmidnight, he was still sitting at his desk, drawing pictures of volcanoes and dragons on scraps of paper, and drinking cold tea.

He was still looking for a way to build his design without the ruinous expense, and was getting exactly nowhere. He tried another tack. Perhaps he could reduce the cost by doing less, and keeping it simple.

He worked through page after page of calculations, and learned that one of the capabilities, military success, added more to the total cost than all of the other capabilities combined.

Why would War cost so much? He wrote a list of each capability and its cost, and ordered it from least expensive to most. There was a pattern. Intrinsic Maia abilities, like shape shifting, raising storms, or changing the course of a river, cost the least. Things on the border, like learning languages or building structures, cost more. Things that weren't Maia attributes at all, like leading armies against Elves and Men, cost the most.

Suppose he dropped War from the general design? What would happen if the Ring didn't bring him victory in battle? Probably nothing. He preferred to achieve those ends through diplomacy, propaganda, and fear. And the design still included Control of Melkor's creatures, so he could raise an army of Orcs and control them easily. He decided that War was too expensive and could be dropped.

Another simplification was the choice of alloy.

He'd always planned to make his Ring from iron, his favorite metal. It made him think of the Iron Crown. But iron was brittle, had a grain to it, and was subject to corrosion. It was too hard to work with for what he was trying to do.

He briefly considered making the Ring from tilkal, an alloy of copper, silver, tin, lead, iron, and gold. It was red or green, depending on the light, and was famed for its hardness. But nothing about it was simple. He probably wouldn't have been able to mix it anyway. Just as well. It would be like wearing a link of Angainor on his hand. He preferred not to be reminded of the chain that bound his Master.

Several of the Great Rings, including the first one they made, were Mithril, which was hard and brittle. It was difficult to work with, and it wasn't a pretty color. Most people loved Mithril, but it didn't do anything for him. He didn't like Silmarils, either. Maybe I'm just weird, he thought.

Make it from gold. Gold was easy to work with, malleable, and stable. Just make a plain gold band. Leave off the gemstones and ornamentation. Make it simple and strong, like yourself. It will pack a punch like a sledgehammer.

He worked through the numbers again. Between dropping War and using gold, he was able to reduce the cost from 'totally out of the question' down to 'painfully expensive'.

But he still clung to the hope that if he were clever enough, he could forge the Ring without investing any of his own power in it. Or at least, not so much that it was painful.

Was there a way to do it? What would the Elven smiths have done? Something elegant and sleek. They would have made something flexible and stable, that would do a little of everything. Most of all, it would do exactly what was needed and nothing more. It wouldn't cost any more than it had to, because nothing would be wasted.

If he worked on the design for hundreds of years to the exclusion of everything else, maybe he could pull it off. And maybe not.

Although realistically, if he built a house, it would be all heavy timbers and cross braces, with more nails than necessary. An Elvish design would be light and airy and soaring. But if he could, just this once, do something light and airy and soaring, he might be able to pull this off.

He realized he was never going to come up with an Elvish design. He'd already been working on this project for hundreds of years, and he wasn't even close. He wasn't an Elven smith like Celebrimbor or Fëanor. He was someone solid and workmanlike, like Aulë. And his Ring would be the same.

He considered his design. The cost was higher than he wanted to pay, but not higher than he was able to pay. All night, he'd been trying to solve the problem of how to do this without paying the price. And now he knew.

The answer had been right in front of him all the time. Just do what you've been trying to avoid. Put in your own power, however much it takes.

4:00 am

He turned to the next problem, binding the Three. He'd never seen them. He didn't know how they were made. He might not even have the ability to understand them, not even if he watched them being made.

It seemed like an insolvable problem.

He knew how to bind the others. When he first came to Eregion and joined the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, he had no particular plan other than to live among civilized people for a while, and win a place among them by teaching them what he knew.

He became an important person in Eregion. In the courtyard at the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, mural of himself teaching the jewel smiths dominated the courtyard. It was painted above a small stage, like an altar piece. He looked larger than life, like a god. He wondered if it was still there.

He was the one who first proposed making the Rings of Power. He supported Celebrimbor's ambition to make his workshop as great as Fëanor's. Then Annatar would become an influential figure among the Elves. They would admire him for his strength and skill, and rely on him for protection.

At some point, before the first of the Great Rings was forged, he began to feel anxious about losing control of them. What if the Elves weren't grateful to him for all he'd done? What if they didn't listen to his advice?

How could he maintain control of the Great Rings after he'd lost physical possession of them? He wanted the rings to convey strength and wisdom to the Noldor Lords who wore them, but he also wanted to retain his influence over the Rings.

He modified the design so that, after they were forged, the rings could be bound at a later time. Because he found it pleasing if a feature served several purposes, he made the binding feature double as a minor structural element, too important to be left off, but not important enough to attract any attention.

He kept meaning to mention it to Celebrimbor, but whenever he started to say something, someone interrupted them, or some crisis came up in the workshop. In all the time they were actively forging Rings, he never managed to have that conversation.

5:00 am

It started to get light. The things he was writing stopped making sense. He stood up stiffly and headed for bed. When he lay down, he felt like the room was spinning. He was exhausted but too wired to sleep. He still didn't know how to bind the Three.

I don't know how they were made. I don't know where they are, or who has them now.

And then it came to him. What I don't know doesn't matter. I know Celebrimbor, and he, like every other craftsman, builds new things on existing foundations. Sure, new techniques were used to make them, but for the most part, they were probably made like the others. The hidden binding feature in the sixteen will also be in the Three.

I don't have to do anything different. The Three will bind exactly the same as the others.


	11. The Forging of the Ring

The Slopes of Orodruin

March 21th, SA 1600

The wind let up for a few minutes, and the fumes from the volcano swirled around them, sulfur and soot and acid smoke.

"Whoa, that reeks!" said his chief assistant.

Sauron drew a deep breath.

It smelled like the creation of the Earth. Rivers of fires, the birth of mountains, minerals and gemstones deep within in the earth. He smiled to himself.

"Actually, I like it." he said.

They arrived in late afternoon. The servants, who got here of them, had already set up camp. A dozen tents were pitched on the upwind side of the campfire. Tent canvas flapped in the wind, which blew pretty much all the time at this altitude, three thousand feet above the plane of Gorgoroth.

Whenever Sauron visited his workshop, he camped on the cinder road in front of the Sammath Naur rather than return home at night.

Orodruin was only ten miles from Lugbúrz, but it was a difficult trip even on horseback. For every two steps they took up the cinder cone, they slid back one. In places, the road was gone entirely, blocked by new lava flows, or fallen away entirely.

They stood at the entrance to the Sammath Naur, the Chamber of Fire, high on the slopes of Orodruin. Tremors shook the ground beneath their feet. Even before they reached the door, he heard a dull rumble coming from inside.

He entered the chamber with his assistants following close behind. Inside, the roar was even louder. Orange light flickered from the crack in the floor. In the still air, the heat was intense. They began sweating the moment they came in. Within minutes, they were dripping wet.

The Sammath Naur was a natural cave extending deep into the burning mountain. Its floor was cleaved from wall to wall by a deep fissure that reached all the way into the lake of lava inside the volcano. When Sauron claimed Mordor for his own, he enlarged the cave into a chamber big enough to house his workshop and forge.

Sauron unrolled a long scroll on a large work table in the center of the room, using small bags of lead to hold down the corners. The scroll documented the entire process he would follow to forge the Ring. Each step was drawn in order, with arrows showing how they were related.

He planned to forge the Ring in a single day, working from first light until he finished it. He thought it would take eight or ten hour, all told.

While his assistants unpacked the tools and supplies they brought from Lugbúrz, he edged over to the crack and looked down. He saw lava far below, orange and red under the grey dross that formed on its surface. During the forging, he would bring the volcano to life, and in this unimaginable heat, he would forge the Ring.

The chamber was too hot to stay in for any length of time, so as soon as they finished setting up, they went back outside. The breeze felt good. Sweat made his hair stick to his face, and plastered his clothes to his skin. And he was the one who could stand the heat the best.

They went to the campsite to get something to drink. The only water up here was what they'd brought with them. The servants untied wooden casks from the saddles of pack animals and lined them up at the edge of the campsite where they doubled as seating. For tomorrow, he'd leave orders that water casks would be placed in the workshop, as well.

He came to Orodruin with a notebook that held a design for a Ring that would enhance all his Maia powers. It would magnify his ability to influence and persuade, enable him to strengthen the foundation of his tower using enchantments, and let him bind the Three Elven rings and wrest them away from Celebrimbor.

This design would do everything but give him an advantage in battle, but he thought he could achieve that through sheer numbers and tight control of his forces. It was his best effort yet, and he was proud of it.

The design filled page after page of his notebook. He'd been working on it for eight years, and now it was finished. It wasn't elegant or beautiful like Celebrimbor's work, but it was reliable and solid, and it did almost everything he wanted it to.

He would still have to put some of his own power into it, although not so much that it would break him. But no matter. Whatever he put in, he'd more than get back.

He also brought an ingot of gold and iron alloy from which the Ring would be forged. If it were ordinary gold, he'd keep it with the other supplies and tools. But it had been hard to mix, and couldn't be replaced easily.

The notebook and the ingot were precious beyond words. He would keep them on his person until the forging began.

After the evening meal, he addressed the hand-selected group who would assist him in the forge. Some of them were goldsmiths who would work with him during the forging itself. The rest would perform small tasks like fetching tools and taking notes. No sorcerers were present, because he had decided to exclude them.

The Forging of the Ring was not really about gold smithing. It was about creating a magical object. Much of the work would involve casting layer upon layer of enchantments over the piece. His assistants would witness everything he did, but they wouldn't understand what they were seeing. That's how he wanted it.

"Tomorrow, we'll walk through the entire process. We'll stand in the same places, use the same tools, and follow the same timeline as we will then. You each know the part you will play.

"I want things to go absolutely smoothly when we do this for real. Anything that might go wrong, we're going to fix beforehand.

"And one more thing. You're all accustomed to working in the forge. But when we do this, you'll be exposed to more heat than you've ever felt in your lives."

He bid them goodnight and retired to his tent.

The Dry Run

March 22th, SA 1600

It was chilly when he woke up. The tent canvas was flapping in the wind. He lay in his cot, knowing he should get up.

The servants must be up already. He smelled campfire smoke and freshly brewed tea on top of the ever-present sulfur fumes. The volcano was erupting hard. It made a roaring sound like a flooding river. People had to shout to be heard over it.

He dressed quickly and joined the others around the campfire.

"This is a rehearsal, but let's make it as real as we can."

Any forge is hot, but in the Sammath Naur, the heat went beyond anything any of them had experienced before. The first time Sauron came here to work, his clothing smoked and threatened to burst into flame.

A smith usually wears a linen shirt and wool leggings, covered by a heavy leather apron, and heavy leather boots. He ties back his hair, but he doesn't usually wear gloves.

In the Sammath Naur, they would abandon traditional dress, and instead, wear protective clothing made of leather, including leather gauntlets. Those working closest to the crack would also wear leather hoods with goggles made of mica to protect their faces from the intense heat.

There were complaints from the smiths. The gloves would make them clumsy. They couldn't see through the mica. He was endangering the success of the project. Sauron ignored them.

"Let's get started."

He led the way into the chamber. Their feet crunched in the cinder gravel of the road.

"I'll raise the molten rock to the floor of the chamber and hold it there, to make sure I can do it when I need to tomorrow."

He walked up to an anvil mounted on a slab of granite at the edge of the crack. In the Sammath Naur, they couldn't mount the anvil on a block of wood, because it would burn. The others backed away from the heat after less than a minute, leaving him alone beside the crack with the molten rock almost at his feet.

He checked his script for the next step. The paper burst into flame. He made a mental note to have all the scripts rewritten on parchment.

He worked in the heat, rehearsing the motions he would go through tomorrow. The others watched from eight or ten feet back.

After he completed the sequences, he joined the others in the back of the chamber where it was cooler. He set the tongs down on the workbench and started to pull off his hood. The tongs hit the floor with a crash, and made him jump. He bent down and put them back on the workbench, avoiding the eyes of the others.

_Don't mind me, I meant to do that._

His people were right. The gauntlets made his hands clumsy. The mask was uncomfortable, and he couldn't see well through the eye slits. He pulled it off and tossed it aside, then returned to the edge. He smelled something pungent, which he assumed was fumes from the pit below.

"Your hair is on fire!" an apprentice yelled.

He dropped his hammer. The apprentice grabbed his hair in a gloved fist to smother the flames. When he let go, Sauron pulled off his own glove and touched his hair. It felt brittle and wiry, and crumpled in his hand.

-o-o-o-o-o-

They sat around the campfire that night, perched on barrels and saddles and convenient boulders. Sauron was bone weary, but deeply satisfied with how the day had gone.

The cook ladled food onto tin plates and passed them around, while a servant filled tin cups from a wine skin. They talked about every single thing that happened during the rehearsal, discussing what had worked well and what could be changed.

"Chief, one suggestion. Why don't we put a line of sandbags along the edge of the crack, and move the anvil back a foot or two? I'm just thinking, what if something gets dropped? You wouldn't want it to roll into the crack." said his assistant.

Sauron bristled. "Are you implying I'm clumsy?"

"No, no, not at all. But accidents do happen."

Sauron set his plate down on a rock and made a sweeping gesture.

"Oh really? When have you ever seen me .. "

His hand struck the edge of the plate and sent it flying. It landed face-down in the cinders.

"Umm … You said sandbags? Fine, whatever." said Sauron.

The Failure of Nerve

March 23th, SA 1600

He got up in the grey dawn. He didn't so much wake up, as give up trying to sleep. So many things could go wrong. His design might be flawed. He might misinterpret a procedure. He might not even have the skill to make his own design.

Or suppose it failed over something small. Suppose two pages in his notebook stuck together and he accidentally skipped a step? Suppose he mistook one tool for another? The chisels all looked alike, and so did the auls. Or suppose, when casting a spell, his memory failed him and he forgot the words? There were so many things he wanted to go over one more time before he did this.

He pushed the tent flap aside. A servant was pouring tea. His assistants huddled around the campfire, drinking from steaming cups. He heard the buzz of excited conversation.

The cook had prepared a substantial breakfast. They planned to keep going until they finished, probably in late afternoon, and not take a midday break. He was too nervous to eat. He could barely even manage a cup of tea.

The sun started to come up. He'd meant to get started before sunrise.

Sauron addressed the artisans and helpers around the campfire. "All right, people. Let's do it."

He led them to the door of the Sammath Naur. Everything was ready, laid out the day before. The scroll documenting the process they would follow was unrolled on the work table, ready to go.

So much could go wrong, and if it did, he could die.

His heart was pounding. He couldn't catch his breath. He hadn't slept well the night before, which made him dull-witted and clumsy. It wasn't safe to attempt this today.

"May I have everyone's attention?" He stood with his back to the crack. Orange light played across the faces of his people. "There's been a change in plans. We're going to stand down for today, and try again tomorrow."

They filed out. He returned to the workshop with a cup of tea and sat down at the table. He spent the rest of the day reviewing his design to make sure it was sound. As far as he could tell, it was. But he couldn't resist reworking the procedures, and had to redraw the schematic scroll and rewrite all the individual scripts.

Late that afternoon when packhorses arrived with barrels of water, he gave their handler a message for his Steward that they'd be up here a few days longer, and to send more provisions and water.

-o-o-o-o-o-

In the middle of the night, his eyes snapped open. He suddenly realized that two things he'd assumed were unrelated were, in fact, different aspects of the same thing. He'd never seen the connection before, but once he did, it was obvious. It meant he could combine two components and get a more efficient design. It shouldn't be that hard to do.

He pulled on clothes over his nightshirt, found his boots, and headed toward the Sammath Naur. The tall slit in the mountainside was emitting orange light. Even if he couldn't see in the dark, he'd have found it easily.

He found pen and paper and began to write. He didn't want to wake up in the morning, knowing he'd had an important insight, but unable to remember what it was.

When he was sure he'd captured everything, he went back to his tent and slept until morning.

The Redesign

March 24th, SA 1600

There was no reason he couldn't go ahead with the forging today.

He spent almost ten years developing his design, which was built upon a hundred years of thinking and planning. He reviewed his design countless times, and knew it was sound. He cleaned up the procedures and led the team through two rehearsals. He slept well; at least, he did when he finally put down his pen and went back to bed. Everyone knew their part, and all the glitches had been ironed out. They were ready to go.

Except … he knew he could make his design better.

There was nothing wrong with his original design. It was plain and workmanlike, and it got the job done, like a header beam over a door. But as of last night, he knew how to make an arch. Both structures can carry the weight, but an arch is stronger and more graceful.

At breakfast, he told his people they would stand down for another day. There was some grumbling about the delay, which he ignored.

He spent the rest of the day filling page after page in his notebook. When he was finished, he turned to the next blank page. He drew a schematic of the original design on the left and the new design on the right. Then he highlighted all the components affected by his new knowledge.

The new design was like the original only with fewer parts, and it did all the same things. This could work.

He reworked the procedures as well, and rewrote all the scripts.

After the redesign was finished, he led his assistants through a dry run of the new procedures.

They finished up after dark. He gathered the group together and made the formal announcement.

"We're ready. Tomorrow, we're going to do it for real."

He heard murmurings of excitement. They walked back to camp in a group, where they crowded around the water barrels, then went off to change into less sweaty clothes.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He sat around the fire with the others, waiting for the cook to serve the evening meal. He slumped in a camp chair with his notebook balanced on his knee. His eyes were closed.

He was thinking about the tests they'd just run. The dry run tested the procedures, but told him nothing about the soundness of the design. He would have to review it himself. The trouble was, he had memorized the design. He saw what was in his mind, not what was on the paper in front of him.

He needed another set of eyes. He called his chief assistant over.

"Have a look at this. Read it out loud, and describe what you see." he said.

He opened the book to the relevant page and showed it to him. The man turned over a few pages, frowning.

"I don't recognize any of these symbols."

The symbols in question were part of the equations used to formulate spells. They would have been familiar to any sorcerer, although the complexity of his Ringmaking equations was beyond the understanding of most. He should have realized that, for someone unschooled in sorcery, his notes were impossible to read.

"All right, I'll narrate, and you repeat back to me what you heard." Sauron said.

He took the notebook back and read aloud from it. He described the design in layman's terms, while making an effort to explain it as completely as possible. When he came to the end, he looked up.

"I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you just said." said his Chief Assistant.

Maybe he should send for one of the sorcerers at Lugbúrz. But he'd left them out for a reason. He wanted to keep his methods secret. Actually, that wasn't it. He didn't want someone finding fault with his work. He couldn't stand to be judged. He decided to do the final review himself.

-o-o-o-o-o-

They sat around the campfire eating supper and discussed how the day had gone.

"Chief, one suggestion. Why don't we put a line of sandbags along the edge of the crack, and move the anvil back a foot or two? I'm just thinking, what if something gets dropped? You wouldn't want it to roll into the crack." said his assistant.

Sauron bristled. "Are you implying that I'm clumsy?"

"No, no, not at all. But accidents do happen."

Sauron set his plate down on a rock and made a sweeping gesture.

"Oh really? When have you ever seen me .. "

His hand struck the edge of the plate and sent it flying. It landed face-down in the cinders.

"Umm … You said sandbags? Fine, whatever." said Sauron.

That night, he couldn't sleep. The new design was a good one. It was his best effort yet.

Except .. He wasn't sure if he should attempt it tomorrow.

The new design was only a day old. He'd written out a clean copy of the procedure, and made scripts for everybody, but he hadn't double checked them. The difference between the two designs was aesthetic more than anything else, so there wasn't any real reason to go with the new one, except that he liked it better.

He decided to sleep on it and decide in the morning.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He was back in the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, where a statue of Celebrimbor wielding a jeweler's hammer guarded the main entrance.

It was dark inside. The forge was roaring.

"Watch the color. It's the best way to gage the temperature of the piece. Careful, don't let it cool too quickly." he heard himself saying.

Celebrimbor was forging one of the Great Rings. Sauron stood at his elbow, giving advice and encouragement. Celebrimbor, his student, did the hands on work while he, the teacher, gave instructions and cast the more difficult spells. He was proud of Celebrimbor's increasing skill.

Then Celebrimbor stepped away from the anvil during an important part of the forging. Sauron, who understood everything there was to know about making rings, picked up the tongs and took over.

But when he swung the hammer, he struck too hard and damaged the piece. He managed to repair it, but now it looked lopsided, amateurish, the work of a new apprentice, not a master craftsman.

He woke with a start, in his tent on the slopes of Orodruin. Unwelcome thoughts raced in his head.

What if Celebrimbor was the real maker of the Rings of Power, and he had just been watching? He never made one by himself, not from start to finish. He wasn't even sure that he could.

He was rushing into this way too fast. He should make another Great Ring first, to prove he could do it, and then he would make the One. It was a good plan, it wouldn't cost him any of his own power, just a few years of his time.

Except that the three Elven Rings were out there, and he had to get them back. There wasn't time for caution.

No more excuses. At first light tomorrow, he would enter the Sammath Naur to forge the Ruling Ring.

The Forging

March 25th, SA 1600

He was up before first light. Today is the day.

There was little conversation around the campfire. He didn't feel like talking, so no one else spoke, either.

He still hadn't decided which design to use, the lower risk of the original or the efficiency of the new one.

He could conduct another dry run today on the new design, and then review it some more. Was he being prudent, or just finding new reasons to put it off?

_You've never been a coward. Don't start now, _he thought.

He usually wore his nails long and filed to a point, but he cut them short when he wanted to work with his hands. He was cutting them now.

When he finished, he tied his hair back as tightly as he could with a leather thong. The lock that caught fire yesterday came loose and hung in his eyes. It was likely his hair would catch fire again today, and he didn't want any distractions.

"Sirrah, come here." he said.

The servant came over. Sauron pulled out the thong and shook his hair loose.

"Cut my hair."

The servant took a knife from his belt and began. Sauron watched dark brown locks fall to the ground. When the man finished, Sauron touched the side of his head. He'd always worn his hair long. It didn't feel like his own anymore, it felt like beard stubble.

His chief assistant came over to talk to him, looking at a script.

"I've asked everyone to … Whoa! What happened to you?"

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"It's, well .. it's pretty awful." agreed his assistant.

Sauron got to his feet.

"Let's go, people. This is it!"

He steeled his resolve, and the volcano began to rumble. Tremors shook the ground beneath their feet, and off in the distance, a boulder bounced down the side of the mountain.

They entered the chamber. The scroll with the procedures lay unrolled on a work table, its edges held down with weighted leather bags. A scribe stood beside it, ready to call out the steps and strike them off as they were completed.

The tools needed for each step were laid out on trays. Every tool had a backup, stored where it would be easy to find. An assistant read from a list to confirm that everything was where it should be.

He was frightened; he didn't know what he was doing.

Before they got started, Sauron wanted a moment alone. He stepped outside. He wanted to pray for help, or protection, or … he wasn't sure what.

_Please let today be successful. _

But that was just another way of saying, "You made me one of the greatest among the Maiar, but it isn't enough. I want more." He tried again.

_I ask for your blessing, even though I know I don't deserve it._

He blinked hard, then mopped his face on his sleeve and went back inside.

The roar of the volcano must have drowned out the crunch of his boots in the gravel, because he entered the chamber unnoticed. He overheard someone saying,

" .. time sequence .. procedures ... Sauron .."

He recoiled, stung. 'Sauron' means foul or putrid in Sindarin. It was just about the worst thing you could call someone.

He was about to come down hard on the speaker, but as he listened more closely, he didn't hear any criticism or disrespect in the man's voice. His assistant just sounded excited about what was happening today, that was all.

He instructed his people to call him Zigur, which means Wizard in Black Speech. Obviously it was a title and not a name. Perhaps people thought Sauron was his real name. He wasn't in the mood to argue, so he decided to pretend he hadn't heard.

"Let's get started." he said in a calm voice.

He still didn't know which of the two designs he was going to build. He'd listed the pros and cons of each yesterday, but found they were evenly matched.

He took out a coin. The dragon favored the original design; the Iron Crown, the design he drew up yesterday.

He tossed the coin in the air and stepped back. Iron rang against stone. He knelt down to look. The image of Ancalagon the Black stared back at him.

The coin toss favored the original design. It felt wrong,

"We're going with the new design." he said.

The scribe rolled up the scroll on the worktable and replaced it with the new one. An aide collected scripts from each of the participants and gave them new ones.

He took out the gold ingot and set it on the workbench. By the end of the day, part of it would be The One.

He walked toward the Crack of Doom. The lava was visible through the fissure that cleaved the floor.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go."

He placed the piece of gold in the jig and tested it for snugness. Then he brought it over to the anvil for its first exposure to extreme heat[1], and laid the first of many enchantments upon it.

He held the assembly in the tongs, and tapped the gold a few times with a small hammer. Nothing happened. He couldn't feel the tools very well through the heavy gloves, so he couldn't tell how hard he was hitting. He raised the hammer and struck it harder. The blow went wide and struck the jig by mistake. It came apart, and pieces flew in all directions. He thought he saw something sail over the top of the sandbags into the chasm, but he wasn't sure.

He looked at the anvil to see if the gold was still there, but the hood had slipped and he couldn't see through the eye slits. He felt around for a place to put down the hammer, and then used both hands to straighten the hood.

Pieces of the jig lay scattered on the anvil and the floor beneath it. He looked around for the small piece of gold, but couldn't find it.

Calm down. There's more of the alloy. All you've lost is a few hours of very hard work. He thought about what to do next. Start over. Repeat everything we did this morning. Try to get as far as we got on the first try, then break for the evening. Start again tomorrow.

Then he saw the piece of gold on the floor. It would have gone over the edge, but hit a sandbag instead. He bent down to pick it up.

"Could someone find me a backup jig?" Sauron called to his assistants. It was a good thing there were two of everything.

He reached the critical step. The time had come to sink a portion of his own power into the Ring. It wasn't a huge amount, but after he committed himself, he couldn't get it back.

He drank as much water as he could, and then some. Then he walked up to the anvil at the edge of the crack and raised the lava almost to the floor of the chamber. The others withdrew, driven back by the heat.

He prepared himself to do it. He tried to clear his mind of everything but the small piece of gold in front of him. Sweat ran down his sides. He was going to do it. Then he hesitated.

He felt inhibited, closed off. He was distracted by the protective clothing. He couldn't see through the eye slits in the hood. The leather gauntlets made him clumsy. He was afraid of dropping his work into the crack. He was not ready to do this. He didn't even think the transfer of power could happen right now. He let the lava sink down to its normal level, and put down his tools.

He walked to the back of the chamber, where he pulled off the hood and gauntlets and dropped them on a workbench.

He was drenched in sweat. Someone brought him a glass of water. He drained it and asked for another. Even though this part of the chamber was hot, it felt cool compared to the temperature near the crack. He knew he was putting it off.

_Stop it._

But there was something else. With the hood on, he was looking at the Ring through sheets of mica rather than with his own eyes. He didn't feel connected to his work. That was wrong. It was supposed to be a part of him.

"Are we going to quit for the day?" his Chief Assistant asked.

"No. I can do this." he said.

The transfer of power was an intimate act. It wasn't easy to get into the right mindset when wrapped in multiple layers of protective clothing. He didn't feel exposed or vulnerable, and he suspected that vulnerable was the way he needed to feel, for this to work.

He peeled off the leather shirt. It was slimy with sweat. His arms were so damp they stuck to his sides. He stepped out of his boots and stripped off his leggings. He definitely felt vulnerable now.

"Toss me that, will you?" he said, pointing to a piece of chamois on the workbench. He caught it and wrapped it around his waist like a towel.

The heat near the crack was so intense his skin prickled from sweat. He had never been barefoot in here before. The stones were warm beneath his feet.

He walked up to the stone slab that held the anvil. He felt like a sacrificial victim approaching the altar, about to give up a part of himself. He kept his mind still; relaxed, yielding, permitting it to happen.

Without the protective mask, he could see the gold circle clearly. And when he held the tongs, he could feel it, indirectly, through the tips of his fingers. Much better.

He took a deep breath. This was it. The scribe called out the steps. He raised the hammer and struck the hot metal. A shower of sparks flew in all directions. He cursed when they singed his bare skin, but he didn't stop what he was doing. He was a smith, so he was used to getting burned. Unless it was really bad, he paid no attention.

The moment arrived. He sang the enchantment, and part of his power flowed into something outside himself. It was working. He smiled with satisfaction.

He started to pick up a pair of tongs from the stone slab next to the edge and shrieked with pain. The tongs clattered to the floor. He stood there with his fingers in his mouth. It hadn't happened during the dry run, but he'd had gloves on.

The tongs were hot because he left them close to the edge. The anvil must be just as hot. He wasn't used to working in extreme heat and was making mistakes.

He stepped away from the chasm and put the Ring in a bed of ash between two banks of coals. An apprentice turned over an hourglass. They watched the sand run through the neck of the hourglass while the gold cooled in the annealing bed.

One of the aides was trained as a medic. As soon as Sauron left the edge, he came over. "Let's see the hand." he said.

Sauron took his fingers out of his mouth. "I'm fine. It's not important."

"Why are you being difficult?" said the medic.

The only way to get rid of people like that was to do what they wanted. He sighed and offered up his injured hand. The medic turned it palm upward. The tips of his fingers were cherry red. No wonder it hurt.

Very gently, the medic painted a clear liquid onto the burned places. It evaporated quickly without leaving a residue.

"This won't mend you, but it will help with the pain." the medic said. "Can you work with your left hand? Because you really shouldn't use this one until it heals."

Almost right away, his hand stopped throbbing. _Much better._ In a strange way, for someone who needed to be in control all the time, it was pleasant to be fussed over.

This far away from the crack, the chamber felt chilly. Someone draped a blanket over his shoulders. He sank into a chair, and wrapped himself in the scratchy wool. He felt sleepy and relaxed. Now all he had to do was wait. In a few minutes, he'd know whether it took.

The gold cooled at a controlled rate. The last grains of sand ran through the hourglass. He picked up the tongs and pulled the gold from the annealing bed. Odd, but even with such a powerful spell cast over it, it didn't feel any heavier than before. Feeling apprehensive, he put it on the scale. Its weight was unchanged.

It didn't take. He slammed his fist on the workbench and swore.

He considered his options. If he quit now, he would lose everything he'd put in so far, and have nothing to show for it. Or he could try again. If it worked, he'd get all his investment back, and then some.

He hadn't foreseen this. He wasn't sure what to do. But he knew he had just a few minutes to decide. Perhaps nothing had transferred. It was hard to tell. He didn't feel any different. He decided to try again, and this time, he would transfer more.

He picked up the Ring and walked to the edge of the crack. He spoke the words of enchantment, and this time, he could tell he'd sunk a significant amount of his native power into it. He felt noticeably weaker.

He put in so much the second time because he thought the initial portion hadn't transferred. He now realized it had. At this point, he'd put in at least twice as much as he'd originally planned to.

He waited to see if the second infusion had been enough. He watched, rigid with apprehension, as the sand ran through the hourglass. When the last grains fell, he pulled the small piece of gold from the annealing bed with the tongs.

It didn't take. He had crippled himself, and for nothing.

This was bad. Things were spinning out of control, and he was someone who needed to be in control, all the time. He felt like grabbing one of the workbenches and overturning it, smashing glassware and sending tools skidding across the floor. Somehow, he forced himself to stay calm.

He had to decide whether to keep going. He so wanted this to work. But now, there wasn't enough time to calculate how much more power was needed. There wasn't even time to weigh the pros and cons of whether to keep going. He didn't know what to do. He had one minute to decide.

Anger welled up within him until he was almost blind with it. This thing wasn't going to beat him. He was going to fight, and he was going to win. He decided to go for broke. For the third time, he took the Ring to the edge of the chasm, and put in as much of himself as he dared.

He waited. In a few minutes, he would learn his fate. If it didn't take, he was finished.

He made the decision when he was angry. He didn't consider it carefully. The consequence was that he might die. Not death of the physical body, Fëa[2] death. He leaned against the wall and wept, cursing his rotten luck and his own bad judgment, cursing himself for having been stupid and rash. He was the architect of his own destruction; what the Valar couldn't do to him, he did to himself.

But something was happening. The last infusion must have kicked something over the edge, and now it had a momentum of its own. And what's more, because of how much of his own power he'd put into it, the Ring was turning out to be far more powerful than expected.

It was time for the next step, binding the others to the One. Sauron didn't know where they were, but it didn't matter. The One would find them.

He sent the others out of the room. He saw the final steps as something like a sacred ritual, and he wanted to conduct them in privacy. When the others had gone, he took the Ring to the edge of the chasm and exposed it to extreme heat.

It took a long time, but finally the Ring glowed red, and he sang the Binding spell over it.

ash nazg durb at ul ûk ash nazg gimb at ul

ash nazg thrak at ul ûk agh burz um ish i krimp at ul[3]

He chose Black Speech for the Binding spell, in honor of Melkor who invented it.

He removed the Ring from the heat and carried it back to the workbench. The next step was to let it anneal in hot oil. The oil was clear, and in a glass beaker, so he was able to watch it while it cooled.

When he dropped it in the oil, the Ring was uniformly red. As it cooled, red markings should appear on the band and stay visible as long as the Ring was still warm. If the Binding spell took, that is. He had only one shot. It had to bind on the first try.

He watched as it cooled. The fiery writing appeared on the gold, outside and in. He'd expected the words of the Binding Spell to be engraved on the band, but he was surprised to see them in his own handwriting.

Only one step remained. Like any other Great Ring, it had to be claimed. He took a deep breath and focused his thoughts. The words had to be spoken with absolute conviction.

He put the Ring on his hand and raised it above his head.

"I take this thing for my own, and declare myself the Lord of the Ring."

Durbgu Nazgshu. The Lord of the Ring.

His hand tingled. The feeling ran up his arm and washed over his whole body.

".. what is … I can't .. "

He staggered backwards and clutched the edge of the workbench for support. A piece of glassware teetered and crashed to the floor. He heard footsteps running.

"My Lord? What is it? What happened?"

His eyes were closed. He felt weak, completely spent, and at the same time, he felt stronger than he'd ever been before.

"Oh Wow!"

One of his assistants whispered to another, "Looks like someone hit the money note."

As soon as he put on the Ring, he thought he could read the thoughts of the three who wore the Elven Rings. But after just a few minutes, the connection was severed. He never did learn who they were, or where they lived.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He thought it would take eight or ten hours to complete the forging, and the dry runs confirmed it. But by the time they finished that day, he'd been on his feet for more than twelve hours. He hadn't yet told his helpers whether they'd been successful or not.

"People, your attention please." Sauron said.

His face was still, revealing nothing.

"Remember this day, because you'll want to tell the story to your grandchildren. And they will tell it to theirs." He looked at them solemnly, and then he smiled.

His people, his apprentices, assistants, and scribes, grinned back. Then they began to applaud and cheer.

"Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!"

"Well done, everybody! Now let's celebrate!" Sauron said.

They surrounded him then, embracing him and slapping him on the back.

"Hail Zigur! Lord of the Ring! Lord of the Earth!" they chanted.

He grinned. It sounded good.

They all headed out to the campsite, slapping each other's' backs, laughing and talking all at once.

After the heat of the forge, and the greater heat near the edge, he felt cold the moment he stepped outside. The temperature dropped after the sun went down. The wind had picked up, too. Someone gave him a blanket, and he wrapped it around himself, shivering.

He went to his tent to get dressed. His clothes were on the cot where he'd left them, but he hesitated to put them on because he was so filthy. All day, sweat ran down his sides, mixing with the grime from soot and sulfurous smoke.

There wasn't enough water at the campsite to wash in, but he remembered a slake tub near one of the workbenches. They'd used it to quench hot metal. He went back to the chamber and dumped the whole bucket over his head. It felt good to be clean. He dressed and headed back to the campsite. The wind was chilly on his wet skin.

He found the others sitting around the campfire. He sank into a camp chair, feeling sleepy and content. The mood around the campfire was festive. Someone passed around a wineskin. Someone else was telling an animated story. He was too tired to talk, but it was pleasant to listen to the others tell the tale of the day's adventures.

He wished he could show the Ring to Aulë and win his approval. He knew from experience how it would go. Aulë would give him a few minutes of attention, followed by a grudging, 'Not bad', the highest praise Aulë ever gave. Followed by, 'Now let's talk about how you could have done better.' A part of him felt sad, that on the greatest day of his life as a craftsman, he couldn't tell Aulë about it.

He wondered if the others knew how close he'd come to disaster today. If they didn't hear him cursing his fate after the first two infusions, they surely must have noticed after the third, when he collapsed against the wall and wept. So yeah, they probably knew.

His hand rested in his lap. His eyes kept going back to the band of gold around his finger. It felt heavy on his hand. He admired the way the firelight reflected from its smooth surface.

He wasn't used to wearing it. The tips of his fingers tingled slightly. It must be a sign of the Ring's power. Did it feel like that when he first put it on? He couldn't remember. He rubbed his hand; maybe it just took getting used to.

Actually, it was more than tingling, it stung. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips. That was odd. He flexed his hand, but couldn't close his fist. The tingling started to feel like bee stings. He wondered what caused it. It couldn't be the Ring, the Ring was a part of him.

Melkor was able to wear the Silmarils on an iron band on his brow even though he couldn't touch them. He burned himself whenever he reached for his crown without thinking, but on the whole, it was manageable. He would figure out how to keep the Ring from burning him; he could wear it on a chain around his neck over a heavy shirt, or maybe inside a locket. But he felt the disappointment keenly. He wanted to wear the Ring on his hand, not on a chain.

His whole hand was throbbing. He knew he should take the Ring off, but he didn't want to. He set his teeth against the pain and wished he had something to bite.

One of his assistants turned to speak to him, but interrupted himself in mid-sentence. The man got up and returned with the medic.

"I didn't summon you." said Sauron.

"Well, I'm here anyway. Let's see the hand." the medic said, reaching for it.

Sauron yanked it away. He didn't want anyone touching the Ring, or even getting too close to it. The intensity of his feelings surprised him.

He touched fingertip to fingertip and transferred the Ring to his left hand without ever taking it off. He wondered how long it would be until that hand started to burn, too. He tucked it under his leg to shield the Ring, and offered his injured right hand to the medic.

"Do your worst." he said.

"I put a salve for pain on your hand when you burned it, but that was hours ago. It must be wearing off about now."

_Oh … right. _

He watched as the medic examined his hand. There were huge blisters where he'd burned himself, on his fingertips, his thumb, and the palm of his hand.

"Do you have more of that salve you gave me earlier?" Sauron asked.

"It was a numbing agent, and yes." the medic said.

He took out the phial and began painting on the clear liquid that erased pain. Whatever it was, it worked quickly. The pain simply stopped.

The cook was making something in an iron cauldron, and it smelled wonderful. He suddenly realized how hungry he was. This morning, he was too nervous to eat. He had nothing but tea for breakfast. And after they got started, they hadn't taken a break until they were done.

He rested his eyes for a moment. His chin fell forward, startling him awake. The second time it happened, he said to the others,

"I'm going to go lie down for a few minutes. Call me when the food is ready."

He got up. The servant who looked after him followed him to his tent and held the flap for him. Sauron sat on the edge of his cot, exhausted.

"Lie down, and I'll take off your boots." offered the servant.

He lay with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his stomach. The fingers of one hand touched the gold band on the other.

He felt hands grasp his ankle and start to ease his boot off. The room was spinning, or else he was falling backwards, he wasn't sure which. Then nothing.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Lord Zigur." Someone was shaking his shoulder. "Supper's ready, if you want it."

He struggled to wake up. He was still lying on his back with his hands folded, one hand covering the other. The gold band felt smooth under his fingertips.

It was darker outside than it had been when he lay down, and colder. Someone must have covered him with a fur rug. He had no memory of how it got there.

"Give me a few minutes."

"That's what you said this morning. Since then, you haven't stirred. We kept checking on you to make sure you weren't dead."

"Is it morning already?"

"No, it's evening. You've been out since this time yesterday."

April 28 – The Aftermath

Barad-dûr

After he returned to Lugbúrz, he kept thinking he got into trouble because he changed his design one day before he forged the Ring.

He came to the Sammath Naur with a design developed over a number of years. He'd studied it from every angle and rehearsed it twice. The new design looked great on paper, but he didn't spend enough time reviewing his work, and he did very little testing beforehand.

Looking back, he suspected there was a flaw in the new design that caused the glitch that almost killed him. If he'd stuck with the original design, the first infusion would have taken, and he could have completed the Ring without it costing him so much of his own power.

_Don't second guess yourself. _

But he couldn't help it. He wanted to know what the flaw was.

He laid two sheets of paper side by side, one for each design. He listed the important features of each as methodically as he could. Diagrams, schematics, and calculations showed where the two designs were the same, and where they were different.

It was as he'd thought. The original design was serviceable and workmanlike, but not particularly efficient. The new design, the one he actually made, was sleek and elegant. As far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with either one.

Finally he found the flaw. One of his assumptions was wrong, and that's what got him into trouble. But it affected both designs equally. Both of them were flawed.

Then he noticed something else. The efficiency of the new design created margin that the original design didn't have. And because of the bad assumption, he'd needed that margin. He stared at the numbers, unable to grasp their meaning even though it was right in front of him.

And then he understood.

If he hadn't made the design change the day before the forging, or if he'd let the coin toss decide that he should make the original design, the third infusion wouldn't have been enough, and he would have died.

He put his hand over his mouth and lunged for the wastebasket, but he wasn't fast enough.

* * *

><p>[1] Actually, the temperatures inside a volcano are lower than in an ordinary forge. Lava can melt gold, but it can't melt iron. Molten basalt is 1000-1200 °C. Gold melts at 1000 °C, and iron at 1800 °C.<p>

[2] Fëa - spirit or soul

[3] In Black Speech, 'gimba tul' is pronounced 'gimb at ul'. The break between syllables puts the vowel in front and makes the language sound more guttural.


	12. Some Of My Best Friends Are Balrogs

**Some Of My Best Friends Are Balrogs**

Gondolin, FA 500

With the Ring on his hand, he felt as powerful as a Vala. He toyed with the idea of recruiting some Maiar of his own. When he served Melkor, his status was high. Melkor assigned three other Maiar to him to be his servants, Thuringwethil, Draugluin, and Carcharoth. He would like to have Maiar servants now.

He'd led a group of Balrogs at Gondolin. Maybe some of them survived the First Age and would be willing to follow him again.

Then he remembered how, after a hard day training, he bought them dinner and a few rounds. Generally Balrogs were shy around him, maybe even a little bit afraid, but after coming off-duty and lifting a few pints, they started to relax.

Sitting down to a meal with half a dozen Balrogs is an experience. He considered himself down to earth about most things, and was accepting of peasant ways, but even he had his limits.

There they were, sitting around the table, belching and farting. Soon, one of them was demonstrating armpit noises, another blew his nose on the tablecloth, and a third started telling knock-knock jokes.

He pushed his plate aside, untouched.

"Chief, what's wrong? Why are you covering your face with your hands?"

Maybe he'd pass on the Balrogs for now.


	13. The DarkTower

**The ****Dark****Tower**

Lugbúrz, SA 1600

Back at Lugbúrz, he sat in his study and admired the Ring on his hand. He'd initially planned to wear it only when he was using it. Or maybe he'd just take it off when he was sleeping. There was a possibility it might be toxic or otherwise dangerous in some way. But when he wore it, he just felt like himself, only maybe more optimistic, with more energy.

Actually, he'd never taken it off. He didn't even know if he could. It changed size at will. If he ever pulled it toward his knuckle, it clamped down hard.

He'd already had occasion to use it. The first thing he did when he returned to Lugbúrz was strengthen the foundations. He didn't need to put his own power into it, after all. He did it with the power of the Ring.

Now he could build the Tower he'd wanted for so long, and it wouldn't crush the foundation or the bedrock beneath it. The plans were complete, and the stone masons began preparing the dressed stone for it since before he moved here. The foundation was complete. He thought he could complete theDarkTowerwithin forty or fifty years.

And he was raising an army. By the time his Tower was finished, the army would be ready to move. And then ..

Say hello to the Lord of the Earth.


End file.
